Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for those comments. He is welcoming the mission-led strategy with the milestones, and he is right to say that you have to measure them and look at what is behind them overall. He has a point about experience and longevity. The Prime Minister has been wise and has spoken about Ministers being in post for longer—I have some skin in the game here. We saw such a churn of Ministers under the last Government, and it gets very difficult for them to build expertise and relationships with civil servants and stakeholders, only to be moved on. I speak as a Minister who has served in a number of departments over the years, and the good sources of information are the civil servants who have been there a long time, as well as new civil servants—who bring fresh experience to you—and past Ministers in your role.

All of us, at any stage in our careers—whether we are new to the job or have been in it a long time, and whether we are politicians or civil servants—need to find that way of learning from each other, building on the best and having respect for different perspectives. We expect civil servants to give that professional advice and guidance and to understand that we are politicians, who need clarity. I hope the milestones bring that clarity to the workings with the Civil Service as well, so that both politicians and civil servants have clarity about what they are doing. My own experience of civil servants over the years has been very positive. I have never known a civil servant to balk when I said that I wanted outside expertise; they have never had any issue with that, and in fact, they have welcomed it in many cases.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, will my noble friend take the opportunity to develop the issues around young people? It is tragic that over the last 10 to 15 years the opportunities for young people in this country have diminished rather than increased. Some of that is external, but a lot has been caused by decisions taken by previous Administrations which limited what young people were able to do. Now, in the missions and the milestones, we have the opportunity to bring in mental health expertise, with both the voluntary sector and the NHS—alongside the work of improving buses. I can tell you about a youngster who left the care system and was then in a village nine miles away from the DWP offices and the jobcentre. It took three buses to get there. He missed his appointment and was sanctioned. Bringing everything together will make a difference for that youngster but also for lots of others. That is why the White Paper on opportunities for getting people back into work was so important, but the DWP and the department of health cannot do it on their own. You cannot even do it just from the Cabinet Office; it has to be across departments. I hope that the Government are really working to crack those issues, to give our young people real opportunities.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very powerful point. I followed on from her at the Cabinet Office, where we had the v programme in place. I was reminded of that only last week when I had an email from a young man who became a volunteer in my office and is now a mental health worker. He would never have taken that step had it not been for the opportunity to volunteer and the support to do so. She makes a powerful point around linking government together, and I was interested in her comment about mental health as well. Talking to a number of young people, it seems to me that one thing that has quite a significant impact on young people’s mental health is the insecurity of their housing. If we can address some of that to ensure good-quality, secure housing for young people—and that young people are part of the solution in building those homes as well—that goes a long way. The opportunities for young people and the expectations of young people about their future concern us enormously. She is right that the only way to tackle that is across government.